ASI recently announced it has awarded Elizabeth (Ellie) Pickford, a sophomore at the Virginia Military Institute, a $1,000 scholarship for writing a winning essay about participating in ASI’s 2021 industry-wide internship program.

Pickford, of Gilroy, CA, interned at A Justice Design/Make It Mine (asi/260003) over the summer and wrote the essay below.

The ASI Summer Internship Program is free to ASI members who hire one or more interns to work at their company. This year, 230 young people participated at 13 supplier and 125 distributor companies, with many working remotely owing to the pandemic.

“ASI has helped train and mentor 1,300 interns since launching our industry intern program in 2016,” said Timothy M. Andrews, ASI president and chief executive officer. “In my 18 years at ASI, that’s probably my proudest achievement. I thank all of the promo companies for participating and hope the students gained a deeper understanding of why millions of businesses worldwide depend on promotional products to help them communicate their message and thank and inform their customers.”

A team of ASI editors read each of the essays submitted by this summer’s interns, looking for students who made the most out of their experience.

ASI supplies participating interns (#PromoInternASI) with a webinar education series and industry overview, ASI welcome kit of promotional items, intern portal with program resources and job aids, and a certificate of completion along with the chance to compete for a scholarship.

Below is the winning essay by Elizabeth (Ellie) Pickford:

I want to be an engineer. I am in school for mechanical engineering, and I plan on obtaining my postgraduate degree in biomedical engineering. I want to improve the quality of life for people with handicaps, disabilities, and diseases. I do not plan on continuing my career in ASI or the promotional products industry. In truth, I am not sure why I accepted this internship opportunity at all. I could have spent the summer at an internship more well-suited for my career aspirations. Some might even say that I should have. However, looking back on the summer I have spent as an ASI intern, I would not change a thing.

I really had to think about how I could make the most of this seemingly random internship. More than anything, I was interested in the big machines that were printing shirts and engraving plaques. Interacting with customers was very much out of my comfort zone. When my boss asked me to answer the phone for the first time, I nearly had a heart attack. I felt as though I did not know enough to answer whatever the customer’s question would be. Turns out, I was wrong. In fact, that phone call became my first order. I had learned enough from my boss and ASI to pick up the phone, take an order, and see it come to fruition. The pennants that I ordered for my customer are now posted all throughout the city. Each time I see one, I am reminded of the fact that I learned how to be comfortable outside of my comfort zone.

In my career, I will not be taking orders from customers. Instead, I will be recognizing an issue with a medical device and improving it. I will be filling a need. Is that really so different from helping a customer find the best product for their project? I have been filling customers’ needs. I will just have different customers with different needs.

While I learned a lot from this internship about ASI and the promotional products industry, the most valuable lessons I learned had nothing to do with either of those at all. I learned that customers are still people. They can be just as understanding and patient as I am. I have learned professionalism and how to behave in a work environment. I learned that I do not have to be afraid of challenges, and instead I should face them head on, with a smile. I learned that comfort zones are relative and it does nobody any good to sit in comfort. I learned that mistakes are great if you make the effort to learn from them. I learned how to be a good worker, how to make the most out of an ostensibly imperfect situation. These lessons will stay with me when I develop the world’s first completely synthetic transplantable organs. These lessons will be with me when I am in meetings and when I give presentations and when I work with others.

In closing, I was able to make the most out of this internship. I made the right choice saying yes to this opportunity, and I am excited to use the knowledge I have acquired in an industry that fills needs just like ASI.